Bartleby’s Book of Buttons may be the best educational iPad book available. I don’t say this lightly. There are a lot of books on the iPad that my kids absolutely love. Certainly the Toy Story iPad games would come to my kids’ minds. But that is because the kids have an affection for Toy Story. […]

Analogies for Kids is an educational iPad app that has a premise I love. It is a quiz that lets kids practice both verbal and geometrical analogies. It is extremely low tech but the questions are just great and I think they really help cultivate young minds. My dream is that one day there are […]

Here’s a statistic that is hard to believe: 93% of eight graders cannot correctly identify the three branches of government. But these are the stats provided by the 2010 National Assessment of Education Program test. The apples do not far from the tree. Adults struggle too. Surveys show that fewer than half of U.S. adults […]

Nearly 300 Kindergarten students in Alburn, Maine are getting Apple iPad 2s this fall. School superintendent Tom Morrill calls the iPad what I have called it: a revolution in education. This is just a plain good thing for these kids. But the Washington Post always feels compelled tomanufacture a debate in an effort to be […]

Math City iPad App Review

I am a huge fan of the iPad app Math City. There are many iPad applications that are high definition, high tech and just feel (to me) like 2020. Math City feels like 2002. It has a simple and, frankly, unimpressive design. But Math City really works and, to boot, it costs only 99 cents, not exactly a bank breaker compared to many other iPad math educational games I have seen (and bought).

The premise of the game is that math problems are falling bombs and you need to tap on the correct answer before the bomb explodes on the city. Thus, Math City. The premise is a little violent for my tastes but the nuance of all of this gets lost pretty quickly in the excitement of the game.The bombs fall faster as the game goes on requiring quicker responses. The ultimate reward for success is a spot in the Hall of Fame – the top 500 scores. You get your name, score and country’s flag on the list. My son is on there. Seeing your child’s name and your flag… it feels like your kid winning an Olympic gold medal yet you don’t have to make all of those 5:00 a.m. trips to the ice rink. (Perhaps I exaggerate. A bit.)

The downside of the game being unsophisticated is that the combinations are limited. After a while, you can answer 51 minus 28 in a flash not because you know the answer or can calculate with ease but because that problem continues to reoccur. I would love to see an update with more variability… but you can also find your variability as we do: using other iPad math apps as well.

I can keep selling this game to you but the best thing to do is search “Math City” on the iPad and get the free version of the game.